Monsieur's Trip

Tour de France winner Chris Froome will begin his 2018 season in Spain next week despite the UCI investigation into him. He is under investigation for testing positive to excess asthma drug last year. Team Sky, who have ignored calls to ban the star, have confirmed Froome’s participation at the Ruta del Sol set to begin on February 14.

Froome was the overall and stage winner two years back at the event and will begin the new campaign in the five day race. He has continually insisted that he did no wrong despite failing the drugs test at the Vuelta aEspana last year.(more…)

The Tour de France race of 2017 would be the 104th edition, which is considered one of the Grand Tours of cycling.

The race will start on 1st July in Dusseldorf with an individual time trial event and will complete with the final Champs-Elysees stage on the 23rd of July. This year there would be a total of 198 riders who will take part as 22 teams.

The start of the tour of this year was scheduled to begin from London and if that had been the case, it would have been the third time that the Tour would have gone through the city of London. This time Transport of London pulled out of the bid and the reason cited was costing as the Grand Depart is an event that needs preparations and different kinds of infrastructure that would amount to 35,000,000 in pound sterling. If the race had started from London it would have been the third time, the previous two times being in 2007 and in 2014. Arrangements for such a grand event start early and the bid for the event was initiated in September when London has been the original choice but it was cut off when Transport of London pulled out of the bid. (more…)

One of Ireland’s main fundraising events for Down Syndrome, the annual Tour de Leinster cycle is now open for registration.

In what will be its fourth edition so far, this year’s cycle will cover 600km over a four-day period and is slated to begin from September 14-17.

The challenge gives interested and registered cyclists the opportunity to cycle shoulder to shoulder with Stephen Roche, the Irish Tour de France and Giro D’Italia legend. The racing route winds through Leinster, on some spectacular route and some amazing scenery along the way.

Costs involved are to be borne by each participant as all funds raised from the Tour de Leinster cycle will go directly to Down Syndrome Ireland so as to help support some of the essential services for the participating Leinster branches.

As tough the participants did not have a lot to be worried about, the route of the 2017 Tour de France seems to be designed in a more difficult pattern than ever seen, the new route will feature more daunting terrains to provide cyclists with challenging experiences that even their rigorous drills and extensive training has not prepared them for.

Christian Prudhomme, the Tour director has explained the reason for this in a statement. Prudhomme had said to his audience in Paris at the Palais des congres in Paris that in the New Year, the Tour de France as a competition will present a “less controlled and more open race.”

He stated that the main reason here was to “break the catenacio” of recent years. Keeping in mind that catenacio here refers to the football lexicon representing a strong defensive system.

In essence, the manager was saying that the goal was to create shake up in the competition structure and make it even more difficult for the powerful teams like team sky that will participate in the Tour. (more…)

Not everything about the cycling events is sunshine and fun. Many riders who took part in the Vuelta a Espana event have been racing to get a contract for the following year.

Many riders have gone into the contest without surety about their future as their contracts expire by the end of the cycling season this year. The race has moved into the second weekend while another race for the 2017 contracts is also on at the same time. There are two teams who would be finishing their contract for World Tour this year by the end of the season. About 60 riders would probably not see their contracts renewed. Many cyclists from Tinkoff and IAM Cycling have their contracts still in place. Rival team members are busy looking for new sponsors as their current contracts are set to expire.

Many cyclists such as IAM Cycling Larry Warbasse from America state that there is pressure on their backs. If their performance does not go well they would not get a sponsor. The transfer season was busy at the time when Tour de France is scheduled in the month of July. (more…)

The souvenir pack that is provided comes with profiles for every team. There are statistics provided for every rider and maps for the stage, interviews with star riders and expert analysis of the tour. You will get to check out jersey holders and stage winner details for each day of the tour. There are interesting stories culminated about the tour as well as a fold out route map and art cards including classic images of previous Tour campaigns. (more…)

Rally Cycling come back to the 5 stage Redlands Bicycle Classic in California on 6th April, to hold their overall award in men’s race.

In 2015, Phil Gaimon won Redlands and he now rides for Team Cannondale Pro Cycling. The squad, this year, enters Redlands with 3 team leaders: Americans Evan Huffman and Danny Pate, and twenty-two year old Victoria native Adam de Vos.
Jonas Carney, the Rally performance manager told that they are happy to come back to Redlands and attempt to repeat their win from last year. They are bringing a very strong team with an eye on the general classification. Their people guys are coming off a tough block of European racing in March and must be all set to fight the best teams in North America.
In 2015 edition Lay finished eleventh and later in the season went on to win the mountain queen classification at Amgen Tour of California. Canadian cyclists Catherine Ouellette, Sara Poidevin and Katherine Maine would support the teams GC ambitions while also looking for stage win scopes.(more…)